


Haven't Felt Like This Since Can't Remember When

by secretfeanorian



Series: the worst things in life come free to us [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Maglor has a great big list of problems, this appears to be a recurring theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretfeanorian/pseuds/secretfeanorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he wonders what made him so special. But he's always known the answer to that question and he's only further deluding himself if he pretends he doesn't know the answer. Which is nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven't Felt Like This Since Can't Remember When

_Sorrow found me when I was young. Sorrow waited. Sorrow won.  
_

* * *

Sometimes, Maglor looks at where he came from and wonders how he got here. He was high up, so high up, but then he fell and he fell and fell and fell until he hit rock bottom and after years of sitting on the very, very bottom, he began to be pulled up out of the pit he had dug himself into.  
  
Sometimes, he wonders why anyone would bother trying to save him and sometimes he wonders what they saw in him. If he were to ask, he already knows the answer he would receive: they wanted to help. But why him? Out of the all the people in the world in similar situations (or, if not similar, then equally destructive) – most of them being far more deserving of rescue than he – why him? What made him so special?  
  
This too, he knows the answer for. Nothing. It was simply chance that he was the one they stumbled onto. But Maglor doesn’t believe in chance. Once, a terribly long time ago, he thinks he may have, but that naïve boy doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Maglor doesn’t believe in chance and so he must have been chosen to be saved. He wants to ask by who, but he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer to that as well, and if he doesn’t no one does, so he doesn’t bother asking that question. It would be a waste of time and the only thing it could possibly accomplish would be to bring worry to the people he considers family.  
  
He doesn’t say anything on that matter and wonders only to himself. He’s been doing a lot of that lately; locking himself in and away. He’s not retreating back into the Void, he’s just…sad. He’s not entirely sure what he’s feeling anymore. It’s not emptiness, but sometimes he thinks the emptiness would be preferable to whatever it is that he is feeling. He thinks it might be grief.  
  
He misses his family – his birth family. The emptiness in his soul has been filled, but he still feels achingly lonely sometimes. This new family, they have filled the hole, but that doesn’t mean the pain has gone away. A bandaged wound doesn’t stop being a wound. The bandage simply keeps the blood from pouring out. A bandage’s job is to keep the wound it covers from getting worse and it also gives it the protection it needs to heal. But it doesn’t do the actual healing; not instantly and not over time. The wound has to heal itself.  
  
And Maglor’s not sure if this particular wound is ready to do that. He’s not going to let himself fade – he’s endured too long to simply give up when things finally start to get better – but sometimes he allows himself to dwell on how much he hurts and how much he wants the hurt to just go away.  
  
He always feels that way, but if he dwells on it for too long, he finds that the emptiness begins to creep back into his heart and he is entirely sure that that is something he doesn’t not want. Feeling may hurt, but it’s that hurt that reminds him that he’s alive and – most importantly – that he’s real. Those are two facts that he forgot when he first allowed the emptiness to consume him all those years ago. He’d rather feel pain than feel nothing at all. He’s sure of that and he swears he will never again let anyone or anything change his views on that.  
  
He promises himself that and then promises Sam that at breakfast the next morning. Sam nods. “I’ll hold you to that,” He says and Maglor smiles.  
  
“I was counting on that.” _And still am. I always will count on that._ He thinks, but that he doesn’t say out loud. He’s still not as comfortable with baring his feelings as he thinks he should be or even as he wants to be. He’s working on that. He tries to anyway. It’s a struggle and more often than not, he bails out and does something else. He wants to get better, but at the same time he’s terrified to do so. He doesn’t know why. He wishes he did. It’s just one more thing added to his list of things he needs to work on or figure out. That list is pretty long.  
  
 _It’s too long_ , Maglor thinks and he’s pretty sure if he showed it to anyone, they’d agree with him. He doesn’t show it to anyone. He doesn’t need to and more importantly, he doesn’t want to. That shouldn’t be a convincing reason, but it’s the most convincing one he has ever used. Another problem. Maglor shouldn’t find that funny, but he does. Oops. Just another mistake.  
  
The list is pretty damn long by now. Maglor doesn’t care anymore. He’s spent too long caring to have it in him to continue doing so. It’s not that he doesn’t care about anything; he just can’t find it anywhere in him to care about just how damn long his list of problems and mistakes has gotten. He’s done worrying over things that worrying won’t fix (and the things that can’t really be fixed at all). No use crying over spilled milk.  
  
Maglor hates that saying; he doesn’t know why he used it. No use crying over wasted opportunities and missed chances. He’s not sure if that is any better, but at least it’s spoken plainly. He hates things that are wrapped in riddles and overrun by comparisons. Just say the damn truth and say it plainly he thinks. He doesn’t understand the use of sayings. Why wrap the truth up and put a pretty little bow on it in an attempt to make it less harsh? You can dress the painful truth up to make it look as nice as you want, but under all the petty dancing around the truth and all the fancy words, it remains just as painful as it was when it was blunt and uncovered.  
  
Maglor actually feels it hurts more that way. Best just to do it and get it over with. Why draw out the pain when you can just say it and be done with it? Truth often becomes a bit less painful once you’ve said it aloud and the longer you draw it out, the more likely it becomes that it won’t be understood or that it won’t be said at all.  
  
There’s a reason Maglor routinely reminds an inhabitant of the Avengers Tower that his family is dead and gone. It’s for his own good, his own sanity. He keeps seeing them every time he does out and he needs to be reminded that they are gone. Whispering the fact to himself in the dead of night just won’t cut it. It never has and it never will. He has to tell someone else; someone besides him, so they can remind him if he ever forgets.  
  
He knows (or thinks he knows) that they won’t understand this unless he tells them, but he can’t find the strength anywhere in him no matter how hard he searches to do so and he’s left desperately hoping that they have figured this out on their own, or, if they haven’t, that they will before he needs them to.  
  
It’s impossible to tell if they do already, but whenever it’s Steve he tells, the super soldier nods with a sad look in his eyes that tells Maglor that Steve at least understands that Maglor needs to remind someone in addition to himself of that fact to keep his sanity.  
  
It’s not that Steve is the only person whose response is to nod, but he is the only person whose eyes are so open when he does so.  
  
It’s not that Steve is naïve enough to leave his heart on his sleeve (and that’s another saying, Maglor hates how they slip into his mind and onto his speech from time to time) and is ignorantly vulnerable, but he has never felt the need to hide all his emotions. Maglor thinks that keeps him sane some days. Steve isn’t vulnerable, but that doesn’t mean his emotions are hidden. Steve’s not exactly good at it. Not that he can’t, he just doesn’t like doing it. The super soldier uses that to his advantage a lot more often than some people might believe.  
  
Maglor thinks he could learn a bit from Steve. He knows his eyes are harsh. He doesn’t know how to undo it, but he’s figured out that he can’t undo the past or bring back the dead. There are other ways to soften a heart though. Maglor’s heart is going to remain hard for quite a few more year, he doesn’t think to pretend otherwise, but he does think that one day he’ll be able to let people into the deepest corners of his heart again. He’s learned how to let them past the first few barriers. That has taken time and it will take even more time to learn how to let down the rest, but if there’s one thing Maglor has a large supply of, it’s time. He’ll figure his heart out one day. He holds onto that knowledge with every single part of him.


End file.
